Party people, I've been going back and forth about creating a private community for Creator Crew. The full scope is yet to be determined but you’ll be able to connect with active creators and other people interested in the creator economy.

You won't be allowed to pitch creators (at least in the beginning) but you can ask questions and get feedback. Reply to this email if you're interested.

Top Clicks: The top click in the last send were Ryff's AI product placement, David Dobrik's $1,500 ticket house party, and Quora's entry into the creator economy.

Today's Highlights:

• The creator economy is in crisis
• Why the creator economy is fintechs next playground
• Slip.stream raises money for license-free music

Talking Creators

The creator economy is in crisis. Now let’s fix it

Li-Jin is always ahead of the curve. In her latest essay, she highlights the growing crisis of the creator economy and its resemblance to the gig economy. Why is this a problem?

Incumbents are leveraging creator funds, new monetization features, and some improvements on discovery to contribute to the key drivers of their business, ads. In the process, incumbents are becoming the gatekeepers to the production, distribution, and long-term growth of creators.

Editors note: this is worth the read and reread.


Why the creator economy is fintechs next playground

When it comes to fintech, the creator economy is usually an afterthought. Mostly because a majority of companies in the creator economy are focused on monetization and the challenges creators face are misunderstood.

Creators need help managing their payments, tracking finances, having lines of credit, and easily being able to send payments. This is need is being noticed by an emerging number of startups that are releasing products to ensure creators have a solutions to these pain points and then some.

More on creators

• How influencers reach out to brands for collabs.
• The Nelk Boys launch their new podcast, Full Send.
• Khaby Lame becomes the second person to reach over 100M followers.

Talking Social & Platforms

Slip.stream raises money to offer license-free music

If you have ever gone through the process of trying to find royalty-free music that doesn't suck or sounds like it was made in Fruity Loops, you know it can be outright difficult. Naturally, the trade offs of not using license free music are having your video taken down or potentially being banned from a platform without reason. Slip.stream looks to make that process easier with a growing library of copyright-free music that isn’t terrible with their new round of funding.

More on platforms

• A new company enters the arena to help creators lock down more brand deals with professional-looking media kits.
• Substack and comic book writers become friends.

Gems

• Battle of the fit: Streetwear is alive and kicking and there's no better place to witness it than in Outfitgrid's daily competitions.
• Sales TV: In a weird but still not surprising turn of events, Salesforce announced they're getting into the streaming game.
• Throttled not stirred: SpaceX is looking to hire a mixologist.  
• The new status symbol: Rise of the $1M jpeg that grants you access and status.

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